


word of mouth;

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst and Porn, Angst and light Porn, Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, F/M, M/M, Mania, Masturbation, Post-Break Up, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, thanks to the person who exposed me on their instagram story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-25
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:10:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: You've got a pile of dirty laundry in the corner of your room you haven't touched in what must be months, a fridge that's completely bare save for a bottle of spoiled milk and a couple of rotten vegetables, a collection of katanas hung up on your wall which are the only things in your apartment not collecting dust, and a slew of friendships crumbling around you.Or, Dirk Strider's impending deconstruction chronicled in four parts.





	1. one;

**Author's Note:**

> yowch it's not johndave? holy shit.
> 
> this is my imagining of nitty gritty earth c where everything is literally as trash as it could possibly be 
> 
> i love this take of the new world more than any other one ngl.
> 
>  
> 
> [here's my tumblr so you fuckers can complain and shit](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)

“Hey, Dirk!”

You nearly fold in on yourself at the call. But you don’t, you just turn around and offer Roxy a ghost of a smile. She grins back, five times as wide, and skips close enough to sock you in the shoulder. You’re pliant enough to let it knock you back a little; both because you’re lazy and because you want to see Roxy’s eyes come alight with smug satisfaction of moving the apparently unmovable Dirk Strider. You haven’t spoken to Roxy since February, nearly two months ago by now, when she’d ran into you at the grocery store and took you out for lunch. She looks nice today, though. She’s toned down her makeup craze, so she looks less painted up.

“Hey, Lalonde,” you tell her and she rocks back on her heels as she waits for you to ramble. You guess she’s grown accustomed to your bullshittery following an introduction, but you’re too old and too tired for that now. She seems to realize after a quiet moment, and her feet settle on the sidewalk.

“Haven’t talked to you in forever, dude!” her dimples dig in on either side of her face, becoming and charming. She’s still that much shorter than you, but the heels she wears adds a couple of inches to her height. You haven’t a clue why she’s wearing them on such a casual day, but you aren’t one to question fashion sense.

“Yeah, it’s been a second,” you tell her with a nod, “What’s the scoop? The word on the block?”

Her face kind of scrunches up at that. “Rosey’s filin’ now, so all that jazz with… y’know should be finished soon.”

You nod and she pushes her bangs out of her face, “Other than that… Well, nothing big. Dave told me John messaged Karkat yesterday. Said that he was canceling on their birthday plans for some reason,” Roxy shakes her head, “Poor guy, right? He’s so sad up there in that big ol’ house.”

“Maybe someone should go talk to him,” you suggest, and she nods in agreement and then goes off, vocally, about it. You all know that someone should help John, but none of you want to take on the responsibility. In the beginning, Dave tried to keep up with him, but three years isn’t easy on a friendship. That’s what he’d told you back when he talked to you, with a sigh following his words and bags under his eyes, that John wasn’t worth it anymore.

You’d learned that, slowly, people became less and less worth it. You were dangling dangerously on the fence of irrelevancy.

“You keep up,” you tell her to cut off her spiel about John, her short-lived relationship him, and how someone should really go see him on his birthday. Roxy had assumed the role of a terrible gossip the second she’d touched down on Earth C, and the title had stuck around since. For all she cared, she wasn’t terribly good at actually doing anything to help.

“You know it!” she told you, then ground her heel into the concrete. “Anyways, I was coming to ask if you’d be okay with bringing some of your trashy Fireball with you tonight?” she asked, almost meekly. You don’t know if it’s because she knows your reliance on alcohol is becoming more and more apparent, or because she’s recovering from the same problem and doesn’t want you to be a nag.

You raise your eyebrow, and assume the role of her latter assumption. “Fireball? Roxy— ,”

“Not for me, obviously!” she clarifies quickly, “You-know-who is finally able to drink, ‘cause of course she would obey drinking laws even off of Earth, so we’re going to get her seriously boozed up.”

“...You-know-who?” you repeat, furrowing your brow. Roxy’s smile drops a little bit, and she tilts her head.

“Janey,” she tells you. When nothing coming close to recognition flashes over your features, she continues, “It’s her birthday soon, Dirk, and we’re having that party next weekend.”

The half-disbelieving, half-upset tone in her voice really speaks to you. But, really, it’s not your fault you’ve forgotten. You really can’t tell when days start and end anymore, so are you to blame that you can’t remember birthdays? You swallow back anything sarcastic, because for all you don’t concern yourself with your old friends, Roxy still manages to talk to you every once in awhile as a rule. You may as well appease her.

“Oh, shit,” you murmur, taken aback, “Shit. It totally slipped my mind.”

“Dirk!” she says, scandalized, snapping up to her full height, “Again? This is the third year in a row! Jake hasn't forgotten since the day. I don't know if you'd remember that shitshow.”

“I know the day,” you deadpan. She blinks. Then opens and closes her mouth, and chuckles nervously. She must've forgotten that _of course_ you would remember that day.

“Uh, yeah, sorry! Silly me. Um. Me and Jake were planning a huge surprise party, and we thought you might want in!”

Privately, you know Roxy doesn’t mean “we” at all. She means she proposed the idea, and Jake smiled nervously and agreed quietly because Roxy would’ve pushed the idea otherwise. He wouldn’t suggest it if there was no one else on the earth to pick from.

“...Maybe,” you tell her, slowly, “I’ll bring the Fireball, though.”

“Thanks, Dirk,” she says, and then her smile softens, “Hey, text me tonight, okay?” her hand finds your shoulder and she pulls you down to hug her. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you, too, Rox,” you admit, and your stomach does a flip-flop in the moments she presses herself against you before her phone starts ringing in her too-small-to-hold-anything purse and she answers it. She opens her mouth to speak, but the person on the line immediately bombards you with chit-chat so loud can you hear it. Roxy cringes a little.

“Hey, Jade!” she greets cheerily, after a couple seconds, and then mouths her goodbye, before walking off back down the sidewalk and talking loudly with Harley.

You watch her go until she turns the corner, and even then you stare at nothing as people shove around. You tug out your phone to make note to Hal to make note of buying Fireball, and of Jane’s birthday as a whole. He gives you a little berating you hardly give a second glance before you turn off your phone and continue home.

* * *

 

** TT: Good morning, Dirk.  **

** TT: Rise and shine, honey, time to face the new day with a smile.  **

 

Your alarm repeats and repeats and repeats, thanks solely to Hal’s sadistic pleasure, until you pull yourself out of bed.

 

TT: Let’s see, what have we on the docket today?

TT: Ah, that’s right.

TT: Today is Jane’s birthday party, which means that we’ll finally have to buy that alcohol Roxy asked us to buy for her last week.

TT: I thought I had reminded you every day since last Wednesday, but maybe it just flew over your cranium, like normal.

TT: Secondly, we’re going to need to find something nice to wear. If we don’t, remember, Roxy will crucify us and leave our body to wrinkle like a raisin!

TT: What a gal.

TT: Hal. Shut the fuck up, please.

TT: I’m only trying to assist you, Dirk.

You feel a headache coming on. You shove your phone screen-down on your nightstand next to your shades and squint at the sunlight spilling through your blinds and lining your dirty carpet. You push up from your bed and start to the bathroom, the migraine only getting worse, so you reckon now’s a better time than any to get a shower running for yourself. Your water takes forever to warm up, thanks to whatever shitty person was hired to install the water heater, so you pull the tab and run the faucet and leave the bathroom to put on some instant coffee.

You’d always thought you wouldn’t be lonely in the new world, and you wouldn’t live like a pig anymore, but your apartment is still a sty and it’s, arguably, gotten _worse_ since now you only have one room to yourself. You’ve got a jug of spoiled milk in the fridge you don’t care to throw away, and you order in dinner every night. If you didn’t still train religiously, you’d be grossly obese by now. Training yourself for an unseeable future was the best way to distract yourself from your blaring lonesomeness.

The coffee tastes like piss, but you drink it anyway. You slide it onto the kitchen sink when you get back into the bathroom, and strip down. The water pressure is awful, and it never heats up beyond lukewarm and hardly satisfying, but it’s all good and well by you. As long as it fucking works, you’re not going to complain.

Anything that gets your mind off of Jane’s party tonight is a good thing. As much as you want to talk to Jake, you’re terrified of messing up. All you’ve got of him is an age-old selfie of you as a shitty teenager, close-ups of his ass on TV, and the occasional glimpse of him on the streets or in the store. And it does terrify you every single time without fail.

You’re going to be in listening distance from him. He’s not going to be a name on your chum's list anymore, or a face in a picture, or a figure in your wet dreams, he’s going to be _there_ and the idea of it is so fucking scary and alluring you don’t know what to think. Every second you’re not with Jake, you miss him more, and every time you near him, you couldn’t speak if you wanted to. You don’t know why it’s so hard to move on, but it is. And it’s infuriating.

You don’t get out of the shower until the water’s as cold as ice. You dig through your closet for something decent to wear that very night after your dress yourself for the day. You consider wearing a polo, but you eventually decide against it because you don’t want to look like a tool. Any shirt that buttons up is classy enough for you, and you’ll just wear some jeans or something. You don’t want to overdress. It’s not really like you overdress if you tried, though. You and fancy, expensive clothing don’t meld well.

You throw an outfit on your unmade bed for later and run a hand through your wet hair before you turn your phone back on. Hal obviously hasn’t respected your wishes.

 

** TT: Dirk, my darling boy.  **

** TT: Dearest. **

** TT: M’lady.  **

** TT: Lest we forget our responsibilities for today, my love.  **

** TT: We’ve got an awful lot to take care of.  **

** TT: Oh, Miss Scarlett.  **

** TT: Whatever could it be, Mister Butler? **

** TT: Finally. Thought you tripped and died in that shower or something.  **

** TT: Go get the Fireball now before you forget about it like you know you will, no matter how far you repress the fact of the matter, you are one forgetful, inconsiderate motherfucker.  **

** TT: Thank you, Hal. That’s exactly what I needed to hear this morning.  **

** TT: Them’s the breaks, Dirk.  **

** TT: Now, go on. Shoo. **

** TT: Fuck off, I will.   **

** TT: My, Miss Scarlett. Risqué.  **

 

You sigh and grab your shades, putting them on hurriedly before you push out the door. You hurry down to the liquor store, and you buy more than just a bottle of Fireball, much to Hal’s apparent chagrin. But you really don’t think he has any authority to berate your decisions any more than anyone else, so you hardly let him nag your about it.

 

** \-- SCHEDULE ITEM CLEARED: buy the fuckign fireball dirky!! --  **

 

** TT: You’ve done it.  **

** TT: I’m so proud.  **

** TT: Just try not to get wasted _before_ the party begins, Dirk.  **

 

You don’t humor him with a response, just carry the brown bag back to your apartment before dropping by to grab some lunch. Truly, you should’ve done these things in a reverse order, but you haven’t been a gifted man for a long while. And, you’ve always been somewhat of a dense idiot, even in your prime. You don’t care, though. Greasy fast food is better than the dust bunnies in your pantry, and you plan on letting yourself starve. You’re going to drinking tonight, and heavily, and though it seems strange, drinking on an empty stomach is a sure-fire way to get you to vomit.

You order enough cheapy shit to feed an entire Girl Scout troop. Very briefly, you consider eating at the restaurant, but the idea dies before it takes off when you see Egbert treating himself to a strawberry shake and sitting the the very back corner of the place. You half-way want to wish him a happy birthday, but the first rule of hermitage is that you don’t acknowledge anyone, especially other hermits.

You rush out of the restaurant as fast you can, and down to eat with a beer that tastes like shit and food that tastes like grease. Your glasses sit opposite you on the table, almost like you’re eating with someone else, even if that sounds sad as shit. You check what Hal had been bugging you about back in the restaurant since you hadn’t cared to pay attention.

 

** TT: He’s cute.  **

** TT: And lonely.  **

** TT: And it’s his birthday.  **

** TT: He beckons. **

** TT: I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying maybe it’s time to, you know, get over your past afflictions.  **

 

You take a bite of your hamburger and set it down on its wrapper so you can take a swig of your beer. You stare at your glasses when you do, and damn near chug the entirety of the bottle before you let it touch the wood of the table. You tip the bottle towards your shades.

“Cheers.”

* * *

Your shirt is considerably more wrinkled when you get to the party, but it’s not as bad as some of your other clothes. Your closet is dwindling as the dirty laundry pile in the corner of your room heightens since you’re too lazy to shove it all in the washing machine. You’ve got a bag with two bottles of Fireball as per request, a second one to make it look like you’re a decent friend. When you walk inside, you can Roxy teetering up on a chair, one leg bent at the knee, as she struggles to hang a banner that says, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANEY!”

Her heels are kicked off, thank god for it to, because they’re bright neon pink and the heel is longer than the average man’s penis. You wouldn’t trust her on that fold-out chair with those in any circumstance. She finally manages to tack it up, and when she hops down from the chair, she sees you and her face lights up. She doesn’t even bother putting her shoes back on before she suffocates you in a hug, arms squeezing around your midsection with the force of a anaconda.

You hold out the brown paper sack, the necks of both bottles narrowly slipping from your grasp, until Roxy pulls away and takes the bag from you. “You came!” she exclaims, like she hadn’t expected it. She patted the side of the bottle. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, uh,” you shrug, shoving your hands into your pockets. “No problem.”

She glances behind herself, and when she turns back to you she looks a little anxious. “I was hoping you’d get here sooner, but—,”

“Roxy! Do we have any tacky glue? The streamers won’t stick!”

Your body immediately seizes up, and it’s got to be obvious because it doesn’t escape Roxy’s notice. She clears her throat and, still looking at you, calls back, “Try in Jane’s office desk drawer!”

There’s silence, and then a crashing noise. You and Roxy both jump, and then there’s a loud declaration of, “It’s okay! I, uh, dropped the drawer!”

“He dropped the drawer?” you repeated, and Roxy snickered a little.

“Yeah, he’s a total clutz! You should’ve been there for his—,” she cuts herself off sharply and looks up at you, “Ahah. Hey, how about you go put these in the kitchen?”

She shoves the bag into your arms and you hold it sideways as she smiles nervously at you. “You know where that is, right?”

“Shouldn’t be hard to find,” you tell her, because you’ve only been in Jane’s house once years ago, and she must know this. You stand still as she struggles to say something to dismiss you, so you just nod and go off on your way. The kitchen is right around the corner of the living room, and it’s bigger than your entire living room. You don’t think about it, setting the bottles of Fireball up on the bar along with some other snacks Roxy has set out. You stare at the quadruple-layer cake on the kitchen table, swarmed with candles, and you try to imagine having someone do all that for you.

You quickly sweep the idea away. The second rule of hermitage is to discard all stray what-ifs because they get nothing but painful very, very quickly.

“Lalonde! I haven’t managed to seek out that goshdarned glue, but I did find a staple gun! Isn’t the suavest frickin’ thing you’ve ever— ,”

He stops. And your hands tighten on the bottle of Fireball.

This is the closest you’ve been to Jake English in four years.

You turn around to face him, and he’s aiming the staple gun at you like it’s one of his handguns. Slowly, he lowers it, and he smiles meekly and you don’t know what to do because you’re just so tied up in thinking that _he’s still so fucking pretty, you’ve seen pictures but he’s right in front of you—_

Your mouth works better than your mind, thankfully, and you say without a trace of emotion or strain in your voice. “Hey, Jake.”

His wobbly smile becomes sure. “Hey, Strider,” he says in that high voice he gets around you sometimes, where there’s more air than words, “How’s it kicking?”

“Pretty damn swell,” you tell him, shrugging indifferently, “I’ve been alright.”

“That’s… fantastic to hear!” he affirms, laughter nervously bubbling from his lips. He says some other things, too, but you only angle your head in consideration. He hasn’t changed much, you have, but he hasn’t. His arms are still noodle-thin, his legs still look fantastic, he’s still got baby fat on his cheeks, and his hair is still swept the same way, and you bet he still looks as good (if not better) from behind. He’s wearing a vest over his button-up, cuffed at the elbows, and knee-length slacks because of course, he would.

You know him so, so well and it’s been so, so long.

“Roxy’s in the living room,” you tell him, and he nods but doesn’t move. You don’t know why you’re trying to wish him away when you’ve fantasized about talking to him for months upon months.

“Strider, I…,” he says, then stops as if he’s lost track of his train of thought before he tries again, “I’m glad you came, chum.”

His smile falters again, and he turns on his heel and walks out to find Roxy. You watch him go, and then you stare at the wall beyond the entryway to the kitchen. Your eyes fall shut and you let out a little puff of breath and you lean back against the countertop, fingers tightening the polished granite. Three years of nothing had led to even more nothing. Whatever delusions you’d had, whatever sparks you’d ever thought would fly, was all for naught. And you should’ve known that a long time ago, but fuck if it’s not a disappointment. You can almost hear Roxy and Jake’s hissy whispers from the other room.

There are a million things that could be going through your mind, and you’ve thought every single one of them before.

But, and it’s very prominent, he _does_ still look amazing from behind. And you hate yourself for marveling about it.

* * *

Parties aren’t your scene, never have been, never will be.

Cake has been eaten, candles blown out, and Roxy and Jane are giggling like schoolgirls together. You hadn’t known they lived together. You certainly didn’t know that they were both still very close with Jake. It hurt a little, to think you’d been so easily cut from the pack.

Jade is tugging Calliope around like she’s a rag doll, all frenzied movements, and sloppy dancing and they’re laughing their drunk asses off. She’s so awful at dancing, it’s humorous, but Calliope lets her keep on keeping on and reciprocates every awful move she pulls. Karkat is trying to be a wallflower with his blind friend as his blind girlfriend tries to force them both into a three-way dancing orgy. Rose’s wife is being tugged around by Karkat’s blind friend’s girlfriend, jerky movements as the two of them try to do some rendition of a slow dance to a pop/party/shitty song. You do notice Rose across the room, too, sitting alone and watching them cautiously.

There are a couple more folks around, but you don’t pay them much mind. You need to start keeping up with all these names and faces but it’s harder than it looks. And it’s not of any concern to you, being a hermit. The third rule of hermitage, the ones you invent as you go along, is that concerning yourself with other people’s business is a hop, skip, and a jump from growing to envy them. And that’s not any good. You’re perfectly content leaning against the wall like a boy at a middle school dance and watching everyone else have fun. You do note, however, that although Jane shares her birthday, there is no semblance of John Egbert in the entire room. He’s not even _present._

You suppose John’s more dedicated to the cause of being lonely as fuck than you are.

You consider buying him a drink and dropping by to send him birthday wishes, but you remember rule number one of hermitage and disregard the idea.

You go into the kitchen to load up on some more complimentary alcohol because God knows that’s why you even accepted the invite (there’s plenty more reasons, you just hate admitting it), and get treated to Jake English talking to you brother, who is in a tipsy stupor.

Jake, obviously, is not drunk. He smiles tightly at you, and tugs on Dave’s arm and it kind of clicks somewhere that Jake was probably chatting Dave up and it’s not a very nice thought to hold.

Dave doesn’t notice for shit, though. You wished that Dave was an emotional or grumpy or anything but obnoxious and oblivious drunk. But he’s not. You used to go drinking with him, back when he could stand you, and aside from being the biggest lightweight known to man, he’s also the biggest idiot when he’s drunk. Dave sees you in all his drunken delight, sunglasses propped up on his head, and he grins. “Yo, Dirk! Check it, you can finally chat up English!”

Dave used to have some moral complex about drinking. Something about his Bro and something about Rose or whatever else, but when the world is over, and you can't get a DUI, he managed to see a different light. Dave just stopped caring at some point along the way, which was all fine by you. He told you he was done with Rose’s psychobabble, and John’s mood swings, and Terezi’s delicate feelings. You marveled in listening to him bitch and moan about everyone in the phonebook because he was so expressive, and he was so funny, it hardly processed you were being dicks to people you should be close with.

Then, you became another name in the phonebook to Dave after you pulled one too many stunts that gave him some mad mental breaks. You became a person Dave bitched about, and it wasn't half as fun. You don't remember when or how you two turned from having a feelings jam every night to barely looking at each other on the street, but you did.

He burps and knocks his fist against his chest. “It’s been forever since you two, like… untangled the fuckin’ knot or some shit,” Dave says, and you swallow down so many contrasting emotions that you don’t know where to begin in telling him to lay off.

“It’s been quite some time,” Jake agrees quietly, and you can tell he’s just praying for Dave to shut up.

“So?” Dave shrugs and almost spills his drink, “You two s’just… I mean, I dunno...”

“Blimey, look at that,” Jake says abruptly, “Dave, it’s almost midnight and it’s a twenty minute’s voyage back to your apartment, so—,”

“You’re going home with him?” you say before you can stop yourself and Jake turns this peculiar shade of red that invalidates the jealousy burning in your stomach.

“No,” he says, “You really think I’d go out and just—,” he stops himself, and glances to the side, “Do you really think so itsy of me, Dirk?”

“That’s not what I meant and you fucking know it,” you reply, instantly, because for as many drinks as you can handle you’ve got a loose grasp on your nerves right now. Jake doesn’t say anything, and Dave just finishes the last of his beer.

“No, I don’t just know that, Strider. I don’t know the bloody half of the baloney you spew,” he gives you this indignant, very un-Jake look. Jake isn’t confident. And he isn’t strong. And that’s why he needed you in the first place. And that is why he _still_ needs you.

“Y’all—,” Dave tries to interrupt, but you just talk over him, and over the music ringing in your ears, “I’m not spewing any kind of bullshit, Jake. I know what you’re like.”

“Helluva hubbaloo! You knew me five damn years ago, maybe!” Jake cries, “You know zero, zada, zilch about me! All you do is… _stalk_ me and _ask_ about me like that’s somehow charming!”

“I don’t stalk you,” you grind out, and you lie through your pressed teeth.

“Oh, I am so sure you don’t,” he huffs out, and takes the empty beer bottle from Dave’s hand, “I’m taking him home so he doesn’t _kill_ himself on the bloody way.”

“I can look out for him,” you argue back and Jake stares at you a couple of moments. There’s a lot of emotions that play over his face in that span of time because your baby’s always been so expressive. He looks so gorgeous, too, and you stare at him like you have the right to do it because you don’t fucking care. He takes a deep breath.

“No,” he says, again, on the exhale and his smile is even snippier. He lets go of Dave’s arm. “No, you really friggin’ can’t, Strider.”

“I can’t?” you echo, and he stares at you or a moment before letting out an indignant little puff of breath.

“Fine! You can take him, handle him, I don’t give two buggerin’ cents!”

“Fine, then,” you sputter, and he looks like he wants to say something more, but he does not. His hands close into fists at his side, and he turns away. Something in the pit of your stomach catches at the sight of him leaving, though, because you’re desperate and you’re creepy and you need Jake English to forgive you.

You’re not going to let him go again, not like this. “Jake,” you say and he cringes at your voice and it’s not a nice feeling to have him hate the sound of his own name coming from you.

“What is it, Dirk?” he asks you.

You want to tell him that you’re sorry, that you didn’t mean any of it and you just want him to like you again but instead, you say nothing and he just walks away and you let him. Dave presses himself against the counter and gives you a long look. For the moment, he is sobered, and he looks like he wants to say something.

“Not now,” you tell him before he can try. You’ve got such a headache, the _worst_ headache. “I’m… Excuse me.”

You push out of the kitchen and walk the opposite hall that Jake did and you get lost in Jane and Roxy’s bigass house until you can find the door to the backyard because you desperately need some alone time. You push open the sliding glass door and, as best you can with a sliding glass door, slam it behind you. You could teleport to the moon for all you cared, as long as you could be alone.

* * *

 It’s cool outside, but not cold enough to warrant a jacket. Which is good, because you don’t own anything like one except for a tattered old windbreaker that Jane got you for your birthday years and years ago when you were on good terms with Crocker and Lalonde. You missed having actual friends, people to talked to when you got hammered or whatever else. But you wrecked it for yourself, so you suppose you don’t really deserve having them help you out at all. You wished you could’ve just forgotten about the goddamn party, turned down the invitation, done something or, moreover, nothing. You don’t know why you think there’s anything about your old friends that would still want you around.

You take a couple breaths, trying not to think about anything. You try especially hard not to think about Jake, but that is damn near impossible. You need a good memory about him besides the two hours right after you started dating and the three years before you asked, but you haven’t gotten one, and you doubt you will.

You tug your lighter out of your jeans. You pat your pockets down, trying to find a stray cigarette or something because you need some form of stress relief, when someone asks you, “Fag?”

Your eyes dart up in surprise, your hands stuck in your pockets. There’s a girl leaning on the wall next to the back door, holding out a cigarette to you. She’s got flannel tied around her hips, and you hardly register that you barely recognize her before you lean over and grab it.

“Thanks,” you tell her, sticking the cigarette in your mouth and going cross-eyed as you try to light it. She snorts at you.

“Introvert?” she asks, mirth in her voice.

“Something like that,” you tell her, shoving the lighter deep in your pockets and taking a long drag. She waits until the smoke billows from your lips before she says, “You’re welcome, by the way.”

You finally get a good look at her and catch her watching you. She doesn’t turn away, just cocks her head a little. Her glasses are perched up on her forehead, and her hair is tied up in a ponytail that’s so messy, with so many locks of hair sticking out of it, you hardly understand the point of keeping it up at all. You do recognize her, though, upon further inspection, but you turn away and press the cigarette back to your lips instead of saying anything. She speaks for you, anyways.

“Strider, isn’t it?” she asks you, then for clarification, “The other one.”

You bob your head once. Doesn’t bother you much, being the other one. It isn’t like she’d known you by any other name. “Dirk. Dave’s always been that much popular.”

“Must suck, being the less cool of a kind. Can’t say I’ve ever been upstaged by another Serket,” she tells you, “The other Vriska wasn’t much in terms of competition.”

You drop the cigarette to the patio and put it out with your shoe. Smoking never fails to make you that much calmer, and neither does conversation with a neutral party, which is why you spend so much time talking to Hal nowadays. “So you’re the infamous big bad, are you?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to recognize me. You didn’t even come to my “Welcome Back, Megabitch!” greeting party. You missed the chance to see me getting all _Grubs Gone Wild 2_ with Pyrope,” she fished a cigarette from her pocket and lets it hang from her lips, unlit, “Karkat was staring at us gettin’ all handsy like he’d unlocked a newfound utopia in his utopia.”

“Can you blame my man? He probably got bulge-fondling material for months on end in ten minutes of lesbian action,” you tell her, only semi-aware of troll slang from you and Karkat’s brief flings of first person shooters, and she laughs and almost drops the cig, but doesn’t otherwise interrupt, “I didn’t even know you’d turned up.”

“I’ve heard you’re locking yourself up, though, and a guy who pulls that self-isolation shit hardly keeps up with current events, right? Kind of like John, except he actually hangs with me. You didn’t cheer for Aradia and Sollux, either.”

“Who?” you say, half-joking and half not because you only vaguely recall the two of them, and her laughter turns into a snorty one. You shake your head. “But, it’s whatever. Isolation makes you think, and it gives you a lot of time to do stupid shit.”

“You’re a wreck. Don’t you get lonely and shit? If I didn’t run my mouth, my thinkpan would explode.”

“Sure, it’s lonely. But it’s easy.”

She hums, pressing up from the brick wall with the foot that’s settled upon it, and propelling herself forward to lean over the wooden railing of Jane’s wrap-around patio. She looks over at you, considers you a moment, and then asks, “Let me see your lighter, kid.”

You pull it from your pocket and step over to her. She takes it without looking back at you and sets it beside her on the railing before she turns around and hops up onto it. It’s just one plank of wood thin, so you briefly become worried she’s going to fall, but she steadies herself easily. “We could get out of here.”

“We could,” you agree, staring past her and past Jane’s rolling backyard into the blinking city lights. Everything is so close in Earth-C, so minuscule and packed together. The bad side of town is a block from the good side, poor neighborhoods are five minutes from rich ones. It’s foreign, and when you glance back up at Vriska, you see she’s been following your line of sight.

“You want to be somewhere else,” she notes. You scoff.

“Like hell, I do, yeah. Gotta come out to some shitty party when I just renewed my _Hentai Passport_ subscription. I was planning on having some fun tonight, but that plan died before I could put it into motion.”

She doesn’t laugh, she just considers you evenly, almost melancholy. “What happened in there, Strider?” she asked you, “I’ve gotten around, talk to the Rox now and again. I know about you and what’s-his-face.”

“Jake,” you tell her.

“Jake,” she parrots with a nod, “Age-old drama, isn’t it?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. But it stands. It persists. He still won’t talk to me.”

“You’re still not over him,” she says, almost as if she’s correcting your statement, and you don’t say anything. She laughs. “Don’t worry, bub. I’ve been there, done that. They all tell you that it gets easier, but it doesn’t. Don’t believe that bullshit, ‘cause I’m still hurting.”

It’s pessimistic, but it makes you feel better than you have in five years to have someone in the same boat. “Thanks,” you tell her, without a trace of sarcasm in your voice, “Thanks for that.”

“Yeah,” she tells you. “It’s a ten-minute walk to my place. You down to sleep over?”

You look up at her. You’ve never slept with a girl before, never have you even considered it. But you find yourself nodding anyways, and she swings her legs over the railing to hop off the patio. You just walk down the steps, and Vriska grabs your wrist. “C’mon. You can hop a fence, right? ‘Cause I’m not going back inside for shit.”

“Who would I be if I couldn’t hop a fence?” you ask her, raising an eyebrow. She snickers and tugs you off, and it’s everything you have not to go back on your decision.

* * *

You come to learn girls are complicated, but trolls aren’t so. She’s rough, for damn sure, shoving you around and tearing up your fancy clothes and sucking deep bruises into your skin. But you don’t mind, and it’s nice to have someone to touch, someone to reciprocate that shit onto.

Her hands get all caught up in your hair and she kisses you, sloppy with clicking teeth and tongues that you don’t know what to do with. Her teeth bite into your shoulder, your neck, down your chest and she rides you with one hand keeping her hair up like she’s done it a million times before. You tried to take control, once, and she damn near bit off your dick so you kept to your own and let Vriska do what she wanted to.

You know damn well that in the morning there will be questions, and there will be concerns, but that’s so far from where you are right now with a pretty girl snug against you in a bed that’s not yours.

“Is this how you move on?” you ask her, rubbing at your neck which will be covered in dark bruises tomorrow, “Because, if so, thanks.”

“Moving on? Kid, I didn’t say shit about moving on,” she nips at your lower lip, “I said, ‘do you wanna fuck?’ which is a completely different ballgame.”

“Well, I was hoping it’d be some of both.”

“I see how it is,” she says, a tone sounding suspiciously humorous in her voice, “You’re just using me.”

You snort. “How could I ever? You’re too much work for me to be selling you short, babe.”

“I’m not your babe, I’m your quick fuck for evermore.”

She adjusts herself, fingers caught up in your dirty and wound hair, and your nose presses uncomfortably against her chest just above her breasts. You turn your head and try to lay on top of her, instead, though it only makes her huff in annoyance. From this, you just shuffle upwards until she’s the one folded into you, hand dropping from your hair to lightly scraping her claws along your shoulder blades, and she presses against your chest with the top of her head bumps your chin up. She murmurs assent into your skin, and your arm slowly drapes around her.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” you say, though you don’t shrug because you’d hate to displace her head.

“Probably. I’m not really into guys,” she says and you could laugh because the irony of a gay guy fucking a lesbian is too much for you to handle. But you don’t because it’s not all that funny when you consider it. Vriska is a warm body, and that’s all you are to her, and it works out well enough.

“People will talk,” you tell her after a silent few moments.

Her claws press lightly into your skin, and she taps them in succession before she speaks, “Then let them talk.”


	2. two;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO FRIENDS I UPDATED!!!
> 
> i enjoy writing this fic bc...... ya know. i like ruining character's lives. 
> 
> [here's my tumblr so you can complain about my bad writing, etc, etc](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)

The next morning, your hangover is nothing compared to the headache you had last night. Vriska is still asleep, and she doesn’t wake even with you pry her arms from around you. You push up from the bed and grab your boxers and not much else before you let yourself into her bathroom.

Trolls never fail to confuse you, and ever since you’d crashed at the “hive” that Karkat and Dave shared for a while, you swore up and down you would never bunk with a troll. But her bathroom is relatively human, and so is the structure of her home, so you manage surprising well. When you come out of the bathroom, Vriska is still drooling on the bed-sheets, the comforter still stained cerulean. She slept in a bed, too, which was very un-troll of her. You guessed she couldn’t get her claws renting out a hive. Those things were big, bulky, and looked expensive.

You pull on your clothes, which are wrinkled and tattered, and you glance out her window. You figure you’ll have to walk back to Jane’s house one way or another to get your car, but you have your keys on you, so it’s not like you’ll have to say anything to either Roxy nor Jane.

You pick up your glasses where they lay overturned on the floor, and make sure your phone is in your pocket.

TT: Rude, you know, Dirk.   
TT: I could’ve desperately needed you while you were back there feigning heterosexuality.   
TT: And to think you turned away Roxy’s advances! 

You’re still not really in the mood for Hal. You bumble downstairs and into the kitchen to see if you can make some coffee to put yourself back in the game. There’s already a spot on, oddly enough, and you reach up into the cupboard to get yourself a cup.

“..Dirk?”

You swivel around and almost shatter a cup on the tile floor to find John staring at you, a cup of coffee in his hand and bags under his eyes. His hair is a mess and his glasses hang off his shirt. He stares at you with a squint in his eyes. “Who let you in?”

“Uh, Vriska,” you said, and he seems to finally notice how torn up you look. He sighs and takes a drink of his coffee.

You hold the mug in your hand, awkwardly, until you have the mind to say, “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” he says, bitter as the coffee he’s drinking, “I hope you had fun at Jane’s party.”

“...You were invited,” you say, instead of anything near the truth, “You should’ve come. We could’ve been alone together.”

“Well, looks like you were alone with Vriska,” he says, then heaves a breath and sinks a little. He scrubs a hand over his face. He’s got as much of a baby face as Jake does, but he’s got a semi-stubble growing along his jaw. You can tell he doesn’t much keep up with himself, from the too-long pajama flannel pants he wears that probably belong to Vriska, to the PINK nightshirt he wears which, again, probably belongs to Vriska. “I’m sorry, I’m… tired. I had a lot to drink last night.”

“I didn’t know you were close with Vriska,” you told him to change the subject from his forgotten birthday.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged, “I’m not close with anyone else anymore, so I thought I could try to find the effort to be charitable to another sad case.”

“A sad case?” you ask him. He just nods and slides his mug onto the counter before taking yours from your hands. You’re not one to protest, though, because it is his property and, from the looks of it, he’s going to be doing the work for you here. He pours you a cuppa, and then reaches for the creamer that sits beside the coffee maker when you say, “Don’t.”

He hands it to you, slowly, almost unsure and hesitant in letting you take ahold of it. “Black coffee?” he asks as if he needs to know you’re being serious, “Jeez, dude, that’s so gross.”

You take a swig of it to prove yourself and his face scrunches up in distaste. “Gross.”

You smile faintly, covering it by pressing the mug to your lips. Though, you think John can tell. “I missed you last night, dude,” you tell him and it’s his turn to pull himself up, now.

“Then why didn’t you talk to me yesterday?”

“Pardon?”

“At that backwash-y diabetes-on-a-bun restaurant,” he explains, “I caught you staring at me, dude! All--,” he clears his throat and lowers his voice into a deep monotone, “‘oh shit is that John Egbert’--,” before going back to his normal voice to finish off his accusatory sentence, “because, yes, that definitely was John Egbert.”

“I didn’t know you’d want to talk,” you defend yourself, raising one hand, “You looked preoccupied.”

“With what?” he asks, the eyebrow proceeding further up his face.

“With your strawberry shake,” you say, “It was taking up a lot of your attention.”

He giggle-snorts. “Oh, yes, definitely. I was just so focused on my two dollar milkshake that’s doing nothing to help my weight gain,” he pats his stomach as if he’s making a point, “Don’t tell Vriska about it, by the way. We’re supposed to be on a diet together.”

“A diet?” you ask him. You couldn’t uphold a healthy diet if you threw yourself into it. He nods, taking a sip of his coffee.

“And we’re both lying to each other about upholding it.,” he taps the side of his coffee cup, “This has to have, like, a million calories or something. Hey, real fast, do you know the difference between calories and carbs?”

“John, I couldn’t tell you if my life was riding on it.”

He puffs out an annoyed little breath. “I’ll google it later, I guess. This fake diet is really taking a lot out of me. I’ve gained so much weight since the game ended. Karkat said that upholding healthy habits helps to get your life on track. He thinks he’s my life coach or something.”

“Karkat’s like that with me, too,” you tell him, “I think he’s like that with everyone. Doesn’t he wanna get in your pants?”

“Twenty pounds and six years ago, maybe,” he shrugs, “I think he’s over it, though. He has a mate…” he trails off and furrows his brow, trying to regain his train of thought.

“Sprit,” you add helpfully. He perks up in realization.

“Matesprit! Yeah, he has a matesprit now. I think he’s moving out of Dave and Jade’s place.”

“Good for him,” you note mindlessly, “Thought he had a different sort of troll crush on you.”

“Oh!” he exclaims, “Oh, no. He dated Dave for a little bit, but it didn’t last. I think it’s like that most times, you know, with black relationships. At least, I don’t think they were.”

You blink. “Black, like…”

“Not, like, race. I’m not being racist!” his eyes pop open, “Not black as in Dave but black as in the quadrant. Do you know how quadrants work?”

“Vaguely,” you tell him, “And I don’t care, by the way. You could legit say ‘death to all niggers’ and I don’t think I’d have half the heart to care, dude.”

“Dirk,” he hisses, and you snort out a laugh at the scandalized look on his face. He only looks more distraught as you continue laughing in the face of his offense. He eventually grows more upset than offended, though, and he huffs.

“You should probably get home, dude,” he tells you, “Vriska’s not a morning person and she’ll probably complain about her aching nook,” he pauses, and something akin to mischief returns to his previously bitter face. He gives you a mirthful look, “Unless of you, she wasn’t using her nook--?”

You stare at him for a long time and then take a sip of your coffee. “You’re a little prick, I’ll tell you what.”

“It’s a valid question!” he said with a laugh, “Aw, c’mon, Dirk. But, really. She will do that. And it will be in detail. Now, I, as her only friend, can handle it. You cannot. You should probably show yourself out.”

You know he’s right. One night stands don’t bode well when you stick around the aftermath. You slide your mug onto the counter next him and he gives you a salute.

“Come over soon, okay?” he tells you, “I’d like to hear from you, Dirk. You’re sweet, y’know, and I’m sick of all my ‘friends’ either blowing me off or trying to… fix me.”

“I thought you blew Karkat off last night.”

John shook his head. “He told me we were going to Jane’s instead of to just a bar, so I told him I didn’t want to go. I’m tired of being upstaged by Jane all the time, you know? It’s like she’s the more important of the two of us, so I didn’t want to intrude on her special night. Roxy might’ve made a scene, too, when she’s drunk…”

His sentence fades off and he shakes his head. You’re not one to make light of old drama, but you know John and Roxy’s fling hardly ended on good terms. “Well, there’s always next year. I’ll see you soon, okay, Dirk?”

You tip your head in his direction, twisting around to get out of the kitchen. “Yeah. Catch you later, Egbert.”

TT: We should message him later.  
TT: I’m getting a strong reading on this, there’s a 87.5% chance he’ll respond and that is just what I’ve calculated from one single conversation.  
TT: The numbers are subject to change. 

\-- SCHEDULE ITEM ADDED: Talk to the cute boy. --

 

* * *

 

You don’t remember when you added John as a friend, but you know he’s on you chum list. Part of you is begging yourself to message him, telling yourself that moving on is good, that John is a sweet boy, that he’ll be good for you. These voices include your own, and Hal’s, which may be the same, but one is a lot more of an asshole about it. But every time you consider it, you start thinking about how you’ll mess up again and give up before you can type him a greeting.

You’ve considered three different openings, seated in a deli that you’re treating yourself to because you thought that if you were in a friendlier, less trashy establishment you’d feel more like a man who was worth John’s time. You’re that much closer to sending him something when someone asks, “So. You and Vriska, huh?”

You look up at Roxy, blinking at her. She’s not wearing much makeup. It’s been weeks since the party, but she looks dreadfully hungover. Her eyeliner job is as wobbly as a top, her lips haven’t been painted but you can see the traces of black from where she hadn’t cleared it up properly. Her eyes are irritated.

“Yeah,” you say after a moment, tapping your plastic fork against your bowl of macaroni and cheese, “I guess word got around.”

“It does when a gay guy sleeps with a girl,” she tells you, and her fingers very briefly meet her lips and she chokes out a laugh behind them before she points her index accusingly at you, “God, Dirk. I wouldn’t have been mad, you could’ve just--,”

Oh. You know what this is about.

Roxy has boy problems. Roxy has always had boy problems. For a short while, after dating John, she called herself a lesbian. And then she was bisexual, and then a slew of made-up sexualities you couldn’t be bothered to remember. You thought that love insecurities and daily sexuality changes were a teenage thing, but you’d just slept with a chick, so you supposed you weren’t one to talk. Roxy had been doing anything she could to find a date, and when she managed, she blew them off for the next person. She was gonna run the whole word through her interest some day.

“I’m sorry,” you say with an indifferent shrug. You hadn’t been listening to her rambling for the past several seconds, but you apologize anyways, “Look, Roxy, I’m sorry you think what you think--,”

“What I think?” she asks. She’s not angry, you can tell, but you do know she’s upset. She’s hurt. You’ve hurt her, and it doesn’t feel as bad as it should. Normally, you’d feel gross for even upsetting Roxy which is why you ever let her thrust herself onto you a long, long time ago. But now you’re less susceptible to emotional pushback even from people who you once cared about upsetting. You’re going numb, you think, as you sip your soda and listen to Roxy bitch.

“It’s not true, what you think,” you say as you set down your soda, but you doubt she’s listening. She used to be good about listening, but with every year she becomes more and more of a hothead. You think Jane’s rubbing off on her, or maybe that’s your influence, but you don’t care either way.

“I know I pestered you a lot back then, but you upheld this lie for so long just to get me off of you?” she blinks once, twice, “I don’t know, Dirk. That’s not what a friend does.”

“Roxy,” you tell her, feeling the frustration build up, but she doesn’t even let you speak.

“No, Dirk, you can listen to me. You let me go on and on all those years, embarrassing myself, only to let me down with some bullshit lie because you’re too much of a pussy to tell me outright? You’re too much of a coward to tell me something so stupid?” her eyes water, but she doesn’t cry, “And then to think you’re doing me a service by still attempting to be my best friend. You think I owe you for some bullshit that happened five years ago!”

She stamps her foot on the ground, and a couple of chairs of passerbyers squeak as they tentatively watch the scene Roxy is putting on.

“You don’t owe me shit,” you tell her.

“That’s right, I fucking don’t!” she screams, near hysterical, “You’re just as awful as everyone seems to think you are, Dirk. I should have listened to Dave and Jake and Kanaya about you because… God. You’re the most selfish man I’ve ever met, and I don’t know why I spent so long idolizing you! I was in love with you!”

“You thought I looked nice half a decade ago,” you deadpan, “I wouldn’t call it love.”

“You don’t know shit about love, obviously!” Roxy spits, “Because all you do is mess it up, Dirk. You messed me up, and you messed Jake up, and now you’re going to mess Vriska up, too!”

“We’re not dating.”

“Fuck you,” she says instead of arguing the point, “You led me on.”

“Because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship,” you tell her, feeling yourself nearing that boiling point you really don’t want to tip over. She knows Jake is a sensitive topic. She knows your flaws are a sensitive topic. She’s trying to get a rise out of you, to get you to hit her or scream at her like some crazy black guy which wouldn’t bode well for your already low self-image. She tips her head back and wipes under her eyes.

“You lied to me,” she presses. You take a deep breath. “Dirk, I… I would’ve changed for you. I would’ve been what you wanted if you wanted it.”

“What were you going to do, Roxy? Transition?” you ask her incredulously, because now she’s being irrational, and she must know that, “I’m still gay.”

“Like shit you are,” she scowls, “You should’ve told me the truth. Maybe you like girls, or maybe you like guys and girls, but you didn’t have to lie to me. You could’ve told me to stop. You should’ve told me to stop because I still--,”

“Excuse me for not wanting to deal with a drunk girl’s bullshit flirting! You can’t push aside the fact I’m not into chicks just to be pissed at me again!” you tell her, loud enough to clip over her words. She gives you a long look, bringing her hand back to her mouth briefly, and you know you’ve really upset her now. You don’t feel sympathetic, though, even though you know you’ve ruined your semi-lasting friendship with Roxy in one sentence. She stands there, silent, and people finally begin to look away from the two of you right when her arm rears back and she delivers a stinging slap across your face.

The deli is dead silent. You bring your palm up to you cheek, and you stare at Roxy as she breathes with a heaving chest and wide eyes. She just turns on her heel and walks out of the deli, and several people’s stares turn to you as she does. They are bitter, and they murmur rude things as they go back to their lunches. Roxy shoves out the door, and the bell dings as she does. Today, she is wearing sneakers.

You fall back into your seat, slowly, and almost out of it. You stab your fork into your macaroni and cheese and glance back at your phone. You delete your message to John, preemptively close the chat window, and turn it off.

 

* * *

  
Your fan churns noisily, and the ringing in your ears does little to combat the headache that’s coming on. You haven’t had a still mind for a long time, haven’t felt the sort of companionship you thrive off for a long time.

“Fuck…”

Your breath heaves low in your chest. You recline, and the bars of your headboard dig into your back. This is your touch, and it is the only contact you’ve got. Only one of your gloves is on, the other one thrown haphazardly across your dirty bed, and the one still clad in leather digs into the sheets as you mutter out swears through your teeth under your own touch.

It sounds poetic, but it isn’t. It sounds natural, but it’s not. Your cock slips through your fingers with slick, gross sounds and you try not to think about anything but getting off because when you do, the headache stops for a split second. It’s chronic, and it’s gross, and Hal has linked you to enough articles about how to knock it the fuck off for you to know it’s an issue. Your skin is raw sometimes, and you can almost laugh at yourself about it because you’re fucking disgusting. You’re that guy, who has subscriptions to five different hentai websites, a slew of sex toys, and ironic pin-up catgirl posters all over your room. But you’re still getting off to only one thing, a very specific dogboy, and it drives you up the wall.

There’s nobody to talk to, so you never talk. You tip your head back and your hips meet your hand and you squeeze too tight and move too fast and you know you’re going to be sore outta your ass in the morning, but you’re just a little too preoccupied with your pants and your groans and the feeling of swiping your thumb over the head of your cock to care about the repercussions.

You think an awful lot about Jake telling you that you just can’t. It got to you a lot more than you’d have liked it to because you are still trying your damnedest to stop caring about English, and that includes what he says and what he thinks about. Your relationship with him was adolescent and inexperienced and Jake’s probably lost his virginity to someone nameless and unimportant and you’ve lost your virginity to Vriska Serket, only a couple of days ago. Jake has probably been with another guy, or been on another date, or moved on to someone new, and you’re stuck in your room masturbating to episodes of his goddamn TV show like the creepy, obsessed ex-boyfriend you’re always going to be.

On the screen, he’s perfect and in color and it’s all you have not to imagine him under you, wanting you, moaning your name and begging that you just fuck him.

But you can’t.

The television illuminates your room, muted, and leaving your thoughts and the entirely too loud noise of skin-on-skin contact the only disruptions in the entire room. You strain your back a little, and your knees fall apart, and you bite down any other embarrassing noises as you come to an unsatisfying finish and listen to the buzz of your fan as you fall out of it momentarily, cum drying on your fingers, Jake’s face a blur on the screen.

 

* * *

 

On a good day, you’ve managed to haul ass to a drug store to pick up some Advil, off-brand soda, and whatever snacks you can manage without passing up your budget. You’d slept through seventeen of Hal’s alarm repetitions, so it’s safe to say you weren’t exactly satiated. Roxy had really gotten to you, you figured, and you didn’t know why she would even get so pissy about her obsession with you as a teenager. She couldn’t possibly be hung up on you.

You hold your groceries in one hand, and with the other, you take gummy worms from their bag you have propped up just so in the plastic one that you’d gotten from the store. You’ve got the clearest schedule, and you wonder if you should finally muster the balls to talk with Egbert. But the idea is quickly forgotten. He’s probably got important things to do, too, because he can’t possibly be as cut-off and lonely as you are. Even though he’d said, not someone like John. People like John don’t do that to themselves.

You know you should go straight home, drink your soda, watch Madoka or finally put that Hentai Passport subscription to use, but you don’t. Because you’re a wreck, and you’re having a midlife crisis at twenty-one, you decide that you should probably buy something to mix with your not-Coke soda. The liquor store being so conveniently near your apartment complex doesn’t really help your self-control.

You buy a lot. Rum, for your coke, and Smirnoff because you just can, really. You set your bottles on the checkout counter and pay for them, get them bagged up, and then ask the clerk for a moment, please, because you feel like you should get something else to complete the trifecta of bad decisions. You’re absently cruising through the aisles when you notice a familiar face kneeling in front of a display of cocktail mixes.

“Vriska,” you say, and she turns to face you. She smiles faintly and stands up to clap you into a hug. She hugs like Dave does, or like other guys probably would, with a handshake and a wrap-around arm that never lasts very long.

“Strider, my boy,” her grin is toothy, but not foolish-looking. She runs a hand through her hair, “I take it we’ve both had a very rough morning.”

“I didn’t know that trolls drank,” you tell her, and she snorts, glancing down at the red cocktail mixer, so you could only assume it was cherry or strawberry or something red. Red-flavored things were always good options since orange things sometimes ended up being pineapple or something, but never red things. They all tasted the same, forgetting what they were meant to be.

“Yeah, well, we don’t. At least not this shit,” she tells you, “John does, though, and I like to drink with him. It’s like an every-night sleepover with him.”

You nod, looking back up at her. She angles her head in consideration when you speak, “So you and John aren’t a thing?”

She snorts, again. “Me and Egbert? Hardly. Forgetting the fact that you’re a really good lay, and Jack is seriously missing out, I’m a ’lesbian’ by Rose’s sapphic standards. I mean, most of the time. Our romantic exploits are far over, man.”

“Jake,” you correct her instinctively, but she only shrugs carelessly, “And… I don’t know. I thought John liked you.”

“John’s gay,” she deadpans to you.

“...Didn’t he have the whole--,”

“Yeah, he did, and yeah, I don’t wanna go into detail, but just believe me when I tell you this, Dirk. Guy’s got serious daddy issues, a serious crush on a boy who won’t talk to him,” she holds up a finger as you open your mouth, “not you, by the way, and a serious desire to talk to someone besides me,” she crosses her arms over her chest and rhythmically taps her fingers on her forearm, “If I were you, I’d jump at the chance to talk to Egbert. You can move on, kid. Jace isn’t the only guy in this world.”

“Jake,” you correct her again, “And maybe. I dunno. It’s hard, Vriska, you told me--,”

“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” she interrupts you, “Listen, kid, John’s basically my best friend now. He’s been good to me when no one else wants anything to do with me. Terezi gave up on getting back with me the second she saw me, ‘cause I’ve changed a whole fucking lot since I blinded the bitch, and she's trying out some independence from ‘abusive people’ jazz with her old news matesprit. John is the unknown Mother Teresa of the new world and if I were you, I’d be all over his ass.”

You struggle with words for a moment, until she says, “But that’s only my advice. Don’t choke up. If you don't wanna take my route, you can always reconcile with the Kike guy. Shack up with him, you know?”

“I-- that's an anti-Semitic slur,” you tell her. She blinks.

“Huh. Well, I dunno what Semitic is. John tells me that a lot, though,” Vriska shrugs, “I’d say go to Vantas. Guy’s good with people, and he's got mad connections. Have you ever chilled with him?”

“Once or twice,” you tell her.

“Then there's your out,” she tells you, then glances towards the front of the store over your shoulder. Her eyes light up, and then she coughs to hide her strange newfound excitement. You turn around to see what she was looking at, but she slaps a hand on your shoulder, “Hey, I gotta roll, but it was nice seeing you, kid. Keep in touch, yeah?”

She doesn't wait for an answer. She pushes past you, brushing shoulders, and heads to the front to buy her cocktail mixer. The bell chimes, some bags shuffle, and she calls “Don't drink everything in one night!” before the door bangs shut behind her with another jingle. You glance at the display and dissect that the orange one is actually pineapple and you try not to let yourself be disappointed. You sigh and bring yourself back to the front, grabbing the pineapple mixer anyways to add the final ingredient.

When you get there, the bag of what you’d already paid for is gone, and in its place, a bottle of red cocktail mixer.

*

You stand outside for a good two minutes before your fist makes contact with the door. You knock three times and then step back. You hear shuffling and hissing from inside the room, a loud crashing noise, and then Karkat opens the front door.

“Strider?” he says, surprised, blinking at the sight of you. You nod at him, and you see Dave show a sign of interest from the couch you can see over Karkat’s shoulder. Roxy had convinced you that Jade, Dave, and Karkat were fucking a long while ago. But, oddly, none of them were. They just bundled together and stayed together for some reason, and you weren’t one to question odd friendships.

You’d been friends with Vantas, too, for a little, through late night Call of Duty runs and dual screaming at little kids over Xbox Live. He’s a big dude, too, so he offered you a little security. The trolls aren’t all that much bigger than humans, you’d come to realize, but Karkat is an obvious exception. He’s not a monster, but he’s still fucking gigantic. You’d seen him strife with Dave, and the guy put up a goddamn fight for not being very quick on his feet.

“I wanted to talk,” you say quietly.

Karkat glances back at Dave and Jade, who sit together on the couch, and then he turns back to you and says, “Yeah, man, come in.”

Karkat steps aside, and you shuffle inside, and he closes the door. You mosey in, shoving your thumbs in your pockets. Their block is nice, and you know that Jade bought every piece of furniture in the place because it doesn’t look like a mess of dark colors and eye-sore ironic rainbow. Karkat’s recliner has a bunch of clothes draped over it, and stacks of boxes about to topple over next to it. His Alternian flag from above the couch is gone, leaving only Dave’s Confederate flag and Jade’s lesbian pride flag. You’d been in it a handful of times before, for drinks with Vantas and your brother, and through the times when Jade taught you how to shoot a gun. It's been a long, long while since Jade and Dave were anything near welcoming towards you, though.

The room is cold, immediately. Dave’s eyes lock with yours from behind his shades, and Jade’s face immediately breaks into a frown. Her hand settles on Dave’s knee like they’re a pair of concerned parents, and Karkat clears his throat behind you.

“Don’t worry about us,” he tells Dave and Jade, but this does little to ease the tangible tension in the room, “We’ll be in my respiteblock, okay? Don’t fuck with stuff,” he points to Dave, then to a couple boxes of his shit gathered at the door, “Just give us a second.”

Karkat glances over at you and waves you along down the hallway. Their whispers start up as soon as you’re out of their sights.

The hive is kind of boxed up, with a lot of Karkat’s things in the process of being moved away. You vaguely recall that he’s moving in with his matesprit, though you’d be damned if you could remember her name. You stare at a splattering of unframed polaroids pinned to the walls, and the shelves of trophies for menial accomplishments.

“Ready to move out?” you ask Karkat, who snorts.

“No. I’m not gonna say it, but I’m terrified of these new human concepts of relationships. Moving in and shit?” he pauses abruptly, and you stop, but he only kicks a few boxes back up against a wall, “That is so many layers of scary redrom grubshit.”

You just nod, because you don’t understand scary redrom anythingshit. He shoves open the door to his room, because it’s always been stuck, and holds out an arm. “Depressed sociopathic sonsabitches first, Strider.”

You roll your eyes and step inside his room. It’s empty and sad-looking, his weirdass cocoon thing the only thing still intact. You run your fingers over the rough exterior of it. “D’ya share one of these with your girlfriend?”

“I dunno what she’s got in mind. I told you, trolls don’t really do the whole ‘opening a boonbucks deposition cell together and buying a fucking hive’ thing,” he shrugs and sits down on his desk chair, which sits in front of an entirely empty and half-way dismantled desk, “Now, what’s eating you, Strider?”

You kick the door closed with your foot. “I’m having guy troubles,” you tell him, bluntly, “Listen, I…. How did you fix it?”

He blinks. “Fix what?”

“Things with your girl,” you tell him, leaning up against the door and awkwardly crossing your arms over your chest in the process of attempting to look chill, “Dave mentioned a while back she has some shit with him and Serket.”

Karkat gives you a semi-skeptical look like he knows where you’re going to take this. “We talked about it. About us, and what we never were. And then we started over,” he pauses, waits for you to say something. You don’t so he goes on, “But it’s different for you, man, you know you can’t just get Jake to forget everything you did to him.”

“It’s different now,” you lie, “I’m trying to move on, y’know? And I want… I want to be his friend again.”

He gives you a long look, eyes downturned so he looks like a giant, pitiful man puppy. He rubs at his eyes and says, “Well, do it.”

You can tell Karkat must be really tired. The guy does work a lot, so it isn’t like he doesn’t have an excuse. But you’re not courteous enough to leave him be. You push up from the doorframe and try to speak without such an urgency in your tone. “You ever like a guy a lot?” you ask him, slowly, “and date him. And then ruin it, by being a total asshole?”

“No, but I had a quadrantmate who pulled that shit on me,” he grumbles, scrubbing a hand over his face, “Maybe you should talk to Rose about this stuff. I’m a lot better with current relationship struggles than dealing with the effects of old news.”

“Karkat,” you tell him, desperately, “I want to make things right with Jake. But I don’t know how to even talk to the guy.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about that, Dirk,” he tells you, “It’s not my shit to go rifling through. You have to sort out your own issues with the guy.”

“He won’t listen to me,” you insist, “Listen, Karkat, I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t really want to fix things with him. Can you… ask him to see me?”

He stares at you for a long, dead-silent moment. And then he lets out a neverending breath. His eyes flicker shut and he rubs at the bridge of his nose. “You want me to be your goddamn messenger boy?”

“I want to apologize to him,” you correct, “And it’d be nice if you helped.”

His hand pushes up to run through coarse locks of hair falling onto his face, and he leans back in his chair. You know he’s going to deny this because Karkat is a peacemaker. But you thought you’d been acting relatively genuine about the whole mess. Truly, you just wanted to see Jake. You had to.

“Please,” you tack on after too long of a silence.

Karkat’s head falls back over the top of his desk chair, and then he sits back up with a renewing breath. “Alright, fine. I’ll arrange a date at a scalding fluids shop and you two can work things out.”

“Shit, really?” you near stammer, perking up, “Shit, Vantas, I--,”

“Can it,” he mutters, “Don’t be too excited. Don’t be unwilling to apologize. And, for the love of god, don’t try and coerce him back into dating you.”

“I’m not,” you say, quickly. You hesitate, and then add, “I’m already with another guy, anyways.”

He finally kicks up a little at this. “No shit. Well, that makes everything a little easier. I thought you were gonna try and seduce the British fuck. Who’re you seeing?”

“Just…” you shrug, and rub at your shoulder, “Some guy.”

 

* * *

 

In a drunken state far beyond making rational choices, your fingers stumble and actually manage to message John. Though, it isn’t very eloquent

TT: Egber  
TT: t  
TT: Fuck  
EB: haha, hey, dirk!  
EB: are you drunk, dude? it’s four in the morning!  
TT: I think the better question is why are you answering my druknen texts at four in the morning  
TT: Shouldnt you be asleep  
EB: shouldn’t you?  
TT: Touche  
EB: i’m just awake, though, i’m not drunk.  
EB: it’s a liiiiiiiitle different.  
TT: John it is never to early too get fuckin hammered  
TT: You come to learn such things as you rpogress and age and shit  
TT: How are you/  
TT: ?  
TT: shit  
EB: you’re cute when you’re so wasted you can barely type, you absolute dork.  
EB: who is this mister cool man texting me?  
EB: oh, wait, it’s just dirk strider.  
TT: Dont even play John im still the fuckign coolest you just dont understand  
EB: pfft. sure.  
EB: you should really come over sometime, when you aren’t so fucked up.  
EB: i’ve missed our conversation!  
TT: yeah Yeah me too man well have to sort something out  
EB: sounds like a plan. 

You stare at his text on your screen for a little longer before you shut off your phone and toss it across the bed. You’re on some ancient rerun of Astro Boy, and the shitty English voice-over rings in your ears. You throw back pure cocktail mixer with nothing mixed into it since you’d cleared out your liquor cabinet trying to find shit to mix it with. It’s almost grossly sweet, and you scrunch up your face a little bit and set the bottle down between your thighs.

\-- SCHEDULE ITEM CLEARED: Talk to the cute boy. -- 

You close your eyes and lead back onto your couch. Your laundry is finally in the machine, the pile in the corner of your room that had practically been developing its own atmosphere had been brought to an honorless end. You were trying a little bit, albeit not much, to get yourself together. Your conversation with Vriska combined with the liquid courage you kept throwing back was enough to convince you to try and move on, per se, but it’s hard work and it’s nothing near fun. It’s hard to move on when you’re constantly being equated to a villain.

No one has spoken to you, save for John and Vriska, since you crossed Roxy. It was kind of funny, almost, how easily all your friends were willing to cut you from their social sphere like you were a tumor. You also thought it was funny how easily they were coming apart. Every time someone made an undesirable decision, they were chopped off like liver. There were guidelines, and there were tipping points, and sometimes all that social pressure made you wish you were still living in utter isolation.

It’s not like it necessarily bothered you, either. If Dave thought you were like his Bro, that was his problem, and if Roxy got offended by you not finding her attractive, that was her problem, too. You’ve got no blame laying on your shoulders. You’ve done nothing wrong, and you’re not sure how everyone has managed to twist it that way.

But, this may be different, and this may be good for you. John isn’t like them. He’s sweet and kind, and cute. He’s got that kiddish look about him, chubby cheeks and curly, messy hair and dusting of freckles over his nose. He’s short, too, and his arms are the only thing about him that don’t look soft and ample. And he’s got that smile, his eyes, the way he laughs…

He looks so much like Jake, he’s almost there, and he wants you. That’s the best part about it, that this devastatingly attractive boy wants you and it’s so nerve-wracking that you hardly want to accept it. You can move on and show everyone that you’ve moved on and, maybe, Roxy will invite you to her birthday this year and, maybe, you’ll finally be eligible to hang out with your brother and maybe you can spend time with Vriska without being accused of being a manwhore because if you have John, you’ll have the initiative to explain yourself.

But you like him. He’s not just your pawn. You’re not playing a game anymore.

You like John.

 

* * *

 

Vantas calls you half past noon, and it’s the only thing that kicks you up in morning. You answer the phone groggily and rub the sleep out of your eyes. “Hello?”

“Strider? Did you really just wake up?”

“Shut it,” you mutter, pulling yourself out of bed, “What do you want?”

“Oh, nothing. I just thought I’d ring you up to have a delightful little chat about how wonderfully Jade’s magnolias are blooming this year and how lovely the weather-- it’s about Jake, dumbfuck.”

“Fuck off,” you grunt, “Is he gonna meet me?”

You pat down your hair and trudge along to your dresses to find a shirt. You put the phone on speaker, and slide it to the top as your scour through your drawers.

“Short answer? Yep. Long answer?” Karkat clears his throat, and continues in a squeaky Cockney accent, “Well, blast my bloody knickers and call me a pip pip cheerio, I’d like to make amends with my good sir Strider but he’s such a frumpy funny fickle thing that, frankly, I don’t think we could pip pip possibly--,”

“But he said yes?” you interrupt, feeling yourself getting irritated. He shouldn’t be making fun of Jake. Nobody should be. Karkat’s shoddy impersonation dies off as you find a shirt to dress yourself in pulling it over your head and teasing your hair up again.

“That’s what I just fucking told you, yeah.”

“Dude. Karkat,” you say, picking up your phone again and taking it off speaker, “You’re the greatest.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. Listen, Dirk, I know you’re probably excited about this--,”

“It’s gonna be fantastic,” you insist, clipping over his words as you slide out of your room on socked feet. “I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to repay you, ‘cause fuck, dude. This is some shit.” You turn sharply into your kitchen, and Karkat tries to speak up, but you press on, “And it’s not like you had to. You just did it.” You hold your phone between your ear and your shoulder and you pour yourself a mug of cold coffee from yesterday morning, “If I believed in God, I’d bless you.”

“Strider, just listen for two seconds--,”

“This is gonna be great for me and English, just you see,” you start excitedly, feeling a wider range of emotion than you have in the entirety of five years (not even during the shittily dubbed sad anime scenes) in just mere seconds. You plop your phone on the counter and turn on speaker again, rooting around in your mostly empty fridge for coffee creamer or some kind of substitute. “We’re going to fix things.”

“Dirk, seriously. Don’t start deluding yoursel--,”

“He’s going to be off his fucking charts of ecstasy when he sees me. When we finally sit down together and talk and finally get along after so long,” you tip the coffee creamer over the mug. You don’t like sweet things, but right now is an exception, “God, I’ve missed him so much. All our late night chats and calls and shit. Just being his friend, when I was there for him, when he wanted me around and when he let me tell him…”

But then you go quiet, and Karkat’s ranting goes in one ear and out the other. You keep pouring the coffee creamer.

“Dirk?” Karkat says after a while, and you realize you’ve emptied all the French vanilla into the mug. It’s got to be pure sugar now, and you look at it in distaste.

“I’m sorry,” you say, then and you blink, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me.”

“It’s alright,” he tells you, softer. It’s almost like he’s talking down to you and yet nothing like it at all. “Take a breather, man. If you can’t handle meeting Jake, don’t. If you think you’re gonna do things you’ll regret, we can reschedule.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again.

“There isn’t coming back from this if you mess up, Dirk. You can reschedule if you have to. Alright?”

You swallow and stare down at your phone, at your overflowing mug, and then Karkat repeats a confirming, “Alright?”

You don’t respond. You just cut him off completely by hanging up and dump your cold coffee into the sink. You need a break. You need to go back to sleep, and you need to ease the splitting headache.

 

* * *

  
gustyGumshoe [GG] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT].

GG: Dirk?  
GG: Dirk, hello! It’s Jane.  
GG: But you already knew that from my chumhandle didn’t you? Oh, blasted, I’m just all over the place today.  
GG: Are you going to see Jake? You haven’t messaged him like Karkat said you’d be doing! He’s a little concerned you’ve skipped out.  
GG: I’m just asking for clarification. :B  
GG: Um, Dirk? It’s a little urgent, forgive me!  
GG: Well, you two can always reschedule, I suppose.  
GG: I guess you’re a little busy. Lordy, as if I don’t know what that’s like!  
GG: Message me back soon, okay?  
GG: We miss you.  
GG: Even Roxy feels bad about what she did. She’s tried to contact you, but you must be sleeping on that darned phone of yours!  
GG: I tried to buzz in to see you. They wouldn’t let me up. You and your flipping isolation, they said you’ve got a “no visitors” regulation.  
GG: Don’t forget about your old pals now that you’ve gone and grown up.  
GG: I’m gonna catch up with you eventually, even if you keep on running like a wild goose!  
GG: I love you.  
GG: And don’t you forget it, mister!  
GG: Just…  
GG: I’m here if you need me, Dirk.  
GG: Really, I am. Don’t forget that, either. 

gustyGumshoe [GG]  ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT].

 

You throw your head back on your pillow. She’s lying.

 

\-- Are you sure you want to block this chum? -- 

>Yes  
  
No

 

* * *

 

John Egbert really likes movies.

Really, really bad movies, too. And he really, really loves Vriska.

She has an excuse to be downstairs, loitering in the kitchen. Or, at least, she pretends she does. She’s chaperoning you two like a hawk, sharp eyes watching every move you make. You’re a little scared, but part of you does find it humorous. The girl you’d just slept with making sure you kept your hands to yourself?

John seemed a little flustered by it, too. He went to the kitchen to “get you a drink, okay?” and you’d heard his and Vriska’s catty whisper-fighting. You don’t think he won, though, because he trudged back and flounced onto the couch with a bratty huff.

“Where are the drinks?” you’d asked him, just to tease.

His ears went red. “Oh, um, I can--,”

“Nah, it’s fine, John,” you had told him, and he glanced behind his shoulder back into the kitchen and almost got back up before your hand shot out and landed on his shoulder, pushing his back down to a seat on the couch. You could feel Vriska’s eyes from the doorway of the kitchen, but you swallowed your qualms and let your arm slip around him fully until he, semi-awkwardly, fell against your side. It was more of a disaster than you intended, and his glasses kind of clattered against your shoulder and he had to wriggle around to adjust himself, but when he did relax and lean his head on your shoulder it was so, so very nice. You could feel the heat of his blush, and you had turned your head so you wouldn’t get too preoccupied staring at him. But it’s hard not to, even though you’d been caught up in this position for a while.

For a last minute date to get Karkat to help with your self-indulgent date with Jake, you’re really enjoying yourself, and you’re as nervous as you would be on a real date. Your fingers wiggle nervously, tapping against the fabric of his sleeves, as you feel Vriska exit the premise. More than you hear it or see it, you feel her exit the kitchen as a force. You try not to think about the fact she could, and very easily, get you into a chokehold and kill you here and now for being too little of a gentleman. But the stairs creak with her footsteps, and John giggles into your chest.

“I’m sorry about her,” he tells you, muffled, “She means well. She’s not used to looking out for people, you know?”

“Yeah,” you tell him, and tighten your hold around him marginally, but enough for him to cuddle closer to you. You don’t consider the trashy Lifetime movie anymore, you’re too caught up in the gentle puff of John’s breath and his warmth against your side. It feels good to have someone. Not any better than having Vriska pressed flush against you, or any better than the pecks on the cheek Roxy used to give you, but it feels good.

“But, hopefully, she’ll realize I’m not a little boy anymore,” John says, then laughs, “I’m the opposite of a little boy now. I can legally drink now!”

“I bet you’re really proud of that, ain’t you, sport?” you tease him and he jabs you with his elbow.

“Hey, at least now I can do it within the law, Mr. I Do Whatever I Want.”

“Don’t lie to me, babe. You know you’ve gotta love a bad boy. Never sleeping until I black out. In a perpetual state of smelling like booze. Probably gonna get lung cancer,” you drawl, purposefully nudging closer to him until he dissolves into even more giggles. You laugh, too, and you watch the way John’s eyes crinkle up at the corners. He’s going to get smile lines at a very young age, but to hell with it, you think it’ll make him look better. Your laughter falls to an amused smile, and he still snickers quietly, his nose brushing up against yours. You’re very close to him, and Vriska’s leering comes to mind to intimidate you into pulling away, but before you can, John kisses you.

He’s twenty-one, but he kisses like a little kid. Inexperience and enthusiasm and it’s so fucking cute, you could lose yourself in that shit. Your arm closes around him and rides up his shirt and he cocks his head a little and leans onto your chest and pretends to know what to do with his tongue. You mumble something against him, which he must take as a positive sign because he laces a hand into your hair. His teeth click against yours, but he’s trying, and you’re so happy he’s trying. When he pulls back, and pants against your lips, you kiss the corner of his mouth and let him slump back against you.

He lets out a little trill, muffled by your shirt, and he clamps his arms around your midsection. You stroke a hand through his hair and watch the movie, although the words go in one ear and out the other. You’re just far too ecstatic that you’ve kissed a pretty boy, someone who cares about you, to think about the fact you hadn’t whispered John’s name against his lips.

“Shh, hey, here,” John tells you, smilingly, turning up the volume on the movie, “This is the best part, Dirk. Believe me on.”

John strikes you as the type to say that about every movie, ever. And you’re the type to believe him every time he says it, too, even if the jokes miss by a million acres and the acting jobs are as stale as three-week-old bread, because if he thinks they’re entertaining then there’s gotta be some charm to them. He turns up the volume a little more, tongue peeking out of his mouth as he struggles to squint at the button on the remote. But you let him handle his duties, continuing with petting his hair.

He manages to knock the volume up a few points, and his arm retracts in satisfaction and back around you. You glance down at him as he nuzzles into your side.

“Hey, I see you,” you tell John, and he gives you a funny look. It ruins something. An illusion, maybe.

“I see you… too?” he says, confusion apparent. You just smile a little at him, and you let him press up into the crook of your neck and stay there.


	3. three;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this is back 
> 
> the next chapter will probably be out soon because it's actually finished for once lmao 
> 
>  
> 
> [follow my tumblr plz](http://egbertmcmuffin.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> (also towards the end of the fics there are some hyperlinks that will take u 2 some Extra Logs if u wanna read em)

You haven’t done laundry in so long, you almost forgot how, but you’re going to look nice if you’re going to be seen with a nice boy.

John had asked you on a date. Black tie, expensive food, bottles of red wine. You weren’t accustomed to going out like that, and strangely, dates as a concept were incredibly foreign to you. This was one of the restaurants you’d been to a long while ago, during one of Jane’s promotional venues, when you were still friends with your friends. You link your arm in John’s almost nervously, and try not to remember being the extrovert you’d always wanted to be. You tried not to remember being able to tell jokes and have people laugh and get Roxy to snort and Jane to giggle coyly behind her fingertips.

The thing is, you’d never liked being alone. It killed you. Jake relished in loneliness, and you despised it, so perhaps that was why the two of you never clicked on for long. But, now, when nobody stands you there’s really nothing else to be but alone. So you deal, and you leave them be, and you lock yourself up.

John grins up at you and tugs on your arm so hard as he makes a sharp left that you nearly tumble on top of him. His eyes are on the waiter guiding the two of you to your table, but his mind is on you. “What’cha thinking about?”

You hum, stalling, until you slide in across from him at a table for two with an expensive bottle of wine already waiting for the tasting. He leans forward, elbows on the table, and his smile ticks up even further, “Hey, don’t start keeping secrets. We haven’t been together long enough.”

“I’m just…” you start, and then carefully pick your words, “I’m just sitting here thinking about how lucky I am to be on a date with someone so gorgeous.”

He giggles and leans back in his chair, far enough for it to almost tip over. “You’re a dork,” he tells you.

“So I’ve heard.”

His eyes crinkle up at the corners endearingly, and he grabs the bottle and tries to twist the cap off, varying degrees of struggle playing over his face as he does so. He catches you staring at him, and you raise an eyebrow. “Need some help there?” you offer, and he only sticks his tongue out at you before focusing on the bottle once more and making little noises of contempt under his breath as he went about trying to prove his masculinity.

You hold out your hand, eventually, and with a huffy breath he gives you the bottle. “It’s hard!” he cautions you, “really, it is. Maybe we should just ask the--,”

And you crack it open within a fraction of a second. He blinks, and then scoffs. “I must’ve loosened it up for you. S’whatever.”

You snort out a laugh and John perks up defensively. You sigh out of your laugh as you begin pouring wine into your glass. “Hey, okay, tiger. You made my job easier,” you gestured towards his glass with the bottle and fill it, too, “I appreciate all your efforts.”

“You’d better!” he tells you, angling his chin up at you and you just smile like a loser again, capping the bottle and sliding it aside. John twists his glass around in his fingers more than he drinks it. You don’t think the guy likes alcohol so much as he likes being drunk, and right now he seems fine being sober.

“Don’t like wine much?” you go off and ask him, and he shrugs.

“Kinda bitter. Never took a liking. I’m not exactly Roxy’s dream drinking buddy anymore,” he tells you, and almost like he’s prompted, he takes a sip of his wine, “But we don’t have to talk about her. Like, ever, please?”

You give him a sort-of weird look, and just nod. “Of course, sugar, we don’t gotta talk about anyone else.”

His eyes snap up and lock on you with a dumbstruck look on his face, and you immediately straighten up in your chair for fear you’ve somehow offended him. He just opens his mouth a couple of time, closes it, and then a grin splits his face. Before you can even be relieved, he says, “You just called me sugar.”

You laugh again as John’s grin only stretches wider. “Of course. You’re sweet as hell, aren’t you?”

“You think I’m sweet?”

“It’s mostly your ass.”

“Shut up!” He hisses at you, but he’s still smiling, still happy, and you’re still absolutely and entirely elated. You haven’t ever been able to make someone so sober giggle with you this easily, except uu, maybe, but that guy was old news ten times over and was hardly a tough crowd to please. Even Jake was always a little too slow to catch onto some of the things you said without being flustered or getting all sorta of off-topic about them. Not to say that wasn’t charming, but you’re glad John isn’t as listless.

“Shit,” he takes a breath, lets out a snigger, “You hear what Dave said about us?”

“Hmm?” you ask him through a sip of wine.

He glances around like he’s supposed to be secret-keeping, though it’s mostly for dramatic upbringing. He leans in, and whispers at the same volume he’d been speaking, “Called me a whore and you a player.”

You snort so erratically wine comes out of your nose and you bring your fist down on the table, and John laughs so hard people around the two of you stop to stare with squeaking chairs. You pound your chest, laughing just as hard, and eventually people turn back around with catty mumbles. You take a deep breath, and then, _“What?”_

“I dunno, I guess he thinks you’re using me to get back at Jake,” John says with a snort, and your laughing dies off a little bit. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything, “And he thinks I’m using you to get at him.”

“Why the hell would he think that?”

“Narcissist,” John shrugs, “It’s a Strider thing, or so I’ve heard. No offense,” he says, pausing, and you can tell he means it in jest so you just wave him on and he grins, “He thought Karkat liked him back in the day, farther back in day thought Rose and Jade were gonna battle over him.”

“And even farther back in the day he thought _you_ liked him?”

“Yeah,” John says, “Probably didn’t help that I did.”

You give him a look. John isn’t looking at you, but he’s still handling the subject with obviously lightness, not caring all too much. “He’s kind of pissed that I’m with you because he thinks that I’m just supposed to, like… I don’t know, fall onto my face for him my whole life,” John shrugs, again, and spins the wine glass on it’s base. It’s a danger to the white tablecloth, but you say nothing, “He’s so full of himself. I think the god thing went to his head.”

“I think it’s going to the wrong one,” you mumble, shaking your head, “I think it’s gotten to all of us.”

“It hasn’t gotten to you,” John says, glancing up at you, “I mean, I didn’t _really_ play much with you, but you seem the same. You’ve got a level head on your shoulders.”

You want to laugh, but John looked genuinely mythed by you, so you just shrug it off and try to direct the conversation away from how you were doing. “I can assure you my head is a relatively average size,” you tell him, and then you almost laugh at your own dumb liner before you can say it, “It’s the only average part of me.”

John snorts and claps a hand onto his chest. “Oh, and you’re so modest.”

You hold up a hand. “What can I say? I’m a lady-killer.”

“I am so sure.”

“Once you go black, you never go back, John.”

He blinks. “I cannot believe you just said those words to my face right now. Unbelievable.”

You shrug, and take a sip of your wine. “I thought it was rather appropriate.

“Never. Nope,” he says, “Do you want to order some food now, numbnuts?”

“Hey, I never kept you from ordering,” you tell him, “Now get your food before I say some dumb, cheesy shit about saving desserts for later.”

John looks up at you, disappointment on his face. “You know, just for that, I’m not sleeping with you.”

 

* * *

 

 

_“Oh, christ almighty.”_

John’s fingers dug into your scalp and his head tipped back even farther. Jake had said some weird things during sex, but John kept jumping from exclamative to exclamative, almost like he was purposefully refusing to use swear words. Which was odd, since he swore very openly, but you didn’t really have time to dive into the morals of his linguistics with his legs around you waist, quite literally in the middle of a very pressing matter.

He’s not very quiet, but you’re into it. He hides most of his little noises in your mouth when he kisses you, gross and sloppy when he moans into your mouth. He’s got this weird kinda inexperience to him that’s really hot, even though you know he’s slept with Roxy, and Karkat, once on a drunken stupor, and Dave a couple times since the game ended through their mess of a friendship.

He buries his face into your shoulder and his nails tear down your back. He’s easy enough to maneuver, nowhere as near as clueless and reliant as Jake and nowhere near as demanding as Vriska, just sort of a happy medium as he rolls with you and whispers against your neck. Something that sounds like Dirk, and nothing but, as you mumble things that sound like John, and something that doesn’t. You don’t think he notices, and if he does, he’s too preoccupied to care.

You pull his face back to kiss him, hand wrapped loosely around his cock because you’d be damned if you were gonna finish first, and he makes it just as messy as normal, breathing against your lips, he tells you that he loves it, he loves it, and that he loves _you._

You don’t know if he meant to say it, but he’s crying with his orgasm when the thought really hits you, and you’re not far behind him. And when it’s over, he gives you this sly sort of look, and falls back against the bed, and you think you’ve already gotten the answer sorted out without anymore prying.

 

* * *

 

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG].

TT: Hey.   
TT: Is John home?   
AG: He should 8e.   
AG: If he isn’t, then I’ve really got no idea where he’d 8e.   
AG: Do right by him, Strider.   
TT: Yeah, I will.   
TT: Thanks. Bye.   
AG: Excuse me? You’re not going anywhere. Not yet.   
TT: I’m not?   
AG: No!!!!!!!!  
AG: We’re going to have a talk, you and I.   
AG: Listen, you know I don’t care a8out Eg8ert that much.  
AG: He’s 8asically letting me live with him for free. So, like, don’t go 8r8king his heart or anything stupid.   
AG: That might ruin things for me.  
TT: How would that ruin things for you?   
AG: Don’t read into it, asshole.   
AG: Take my word at f8ce value. Just 8e good to him, and we won’t have a problem.   
AG: And I will not hesit8 to fucking castr8 you if you make his 8itch ass cry.   
TT: Alright, you don’t have to get all protective about your BFF or whatever.   
AG: He is not my 8FF!!!!!!!!  
AG: He’s my landlord.   
AG: Shut the fuck up.   
TT: Sure.   
AG: I said shut the fuck up.   
AG: Now, we never had this conver8tion. Get it?   
AG: Got it?   
AG: Good. 

 

arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased being pestered by timaeusTestified [TT].

You glance up at the upstairs window of John’s house. You probably should’ve asked Vriska before you got there, but you’d walked up to the house with such confident you thought you wouldn’t have to. It was only when you actually arrived that you began to get nervous and start lingering outside, teetering on your heels, putting on some chapstick and fixing your hair and messaging John’s 8FF.

Vriska was entirely impossible. You didn’t understand her flip between obviously caring for John and her pessimistic attitude that forced her to pretend not to care about him at all. You guess you could understand where her intentions were coming from, but at the same time, she was really bad about keeping that sort of secret.

 

TT: My fair lady, may I advise thou with words of a gentleman?   
TT: I don’t take relationship advice from you.   
TT: You have been this whole time.   
TT: Besides, silly goose, you reset me. I can do this without you absolutely fucking up. I’m a different Hal, in technicalities.   
TT: I can handle things myself, thanks. 

You stared up at the window, then set your shoulders, and made a beeline for the front door.

Hal responds, but you don’t care; you’ve got more important things on your mind and arguing with your AI is far from one of them. You don’t really know why you even reprogrammed him when your first AI died with the game, as a sprite. But you did. You think it was because you were lonely, but that sounds too pathetic to entertain as a thought for long.

You knock on John’s door, step back, and wait. It’s only a couple of moments before someone opens it, and you stare at John through the screen door before he opens that, too, and smiles at you.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” you say back.

He looks down at his feet. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I thought you’d be free.”

“I’m not… really,” he says softly, and then glances over his shoulder. You try to look, too, but he looks back at you before you can snoop and you just focus on his face. You frown.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing, it’s just…” he trails off, and you immediately wonder if he’s got someone over. A boy, maybe, maybe someone else he’s planning on sleeping with. Your thoughts are mostly transparent and you face falls a little, maybe it darkens, because John shuffles back a little bit and clears his throat.

“It’s just Rose,” he tells you before you can get worked up, “She’s not doing too good.”

You furrow your brow and wave him aside, and he just slides over and lets you in. He closes the door behind you and you let yourself into the living room, immediately seeing Rose slumped on his couch, head in her hands, the TV blaring some cheesy make-over program. You stare at her for a moment until John comes up at your side, and when he opens his mouth to speak, Rose moves her hand and says, “Hello, Dirk.”

“Hey,” you tell her, and look over at John for some kind of confirmation. He just nods, and you move towards her a little, “How are you?”

“Shit,” she says, “What about you, dear?”

You shrug. “Shit,” you parrot back, and she snorts. She lifts her face a little, throwing her head back against the couch, and regards you slowly.

“You’re treating John right?”

 _“Rose!”_ John hisses, but you nod.

“Yeah, we’re doing alright.”

“Good,” she mumbles, almost senselessly, “That’s good.”

“How’s the, um…” you trails off, looking over at John, who shakes his head very slightly. You clear your throat. “How’s the fa--,”

“The divorce,” she interrupts you, “You want to know how the divorce is going. Well, Kanaya filed her paperwork, under all legalities, we’re no longer married,” her fingers pat the side table, like she’s looking to grab something that isn’t there, “Isn’t that something?”

“Sure is,” you say, “You ain’t holding up too well, are you?”

 _“Dirk!”_ John hisses out, again, but Rose only snorts another laugh out and tips her head back further.

“Do I look like I am, Strider?” she asks you, raising an eyebrow, “Do I really look it?”

“Nah,” you tell her, “Nah, you really don’t.”

Then the three of you fall into a silence, not exactly uncomfortable, just clueless.

“I’m going to get you some water, Rose,” John says suddenly, and he hurriedly slips into the kitchen. Rose hums, an acknowledgement of how awful he was at lying, and then the two of you sat in a considerably more appropriate silence. It still wasn’t pleasing you.

“He said it’d get better, didn’t he?” you ask her, and she just closes her eyes again, falls into a nod. You swallow, and go on, “Well, it’s bullshit. They tell you it gets easier, Rose, but I promise it doesn’t. It never will. It’s gonna hurt, and it might hurt forever.”

“Well, aren’t you the optimist,” she hums, amused, and you roll your eyes.

“It’s true, and you damn well know it,” you tell her, “The only thing you can do is just… force yourself to move on. And maybe you’ll be sad as fuck about it for the rest of your life, and maybe one day you’ll find some other troll chick to bang, but you’ve gotta get over her the best you can.”

You stare at her, and she’s largely unresponsive. All you can think about is that you need to take your own advice sooner or later. John comes back into the living room with water, slides a glass onto the table besides Rose, and gives you a look that fleets to the door. It’s your cue to go. You stand up and turn to leave, but before you can, Rose catches your wrist. You look back at her, and she opens one eye, looks right at you, and she says, “Thank you, Dirk.”

You tug your hand away, give her a nod, and then you shove your hands in your pockets and start walking home. When you’re a significant distance around the block, you pull out your phone, and purposefully ignore Hal’s persistence.

 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering arachnidsGrip [AG].

TT: John was home.  
AG: And?  
TT: So was Rose.  
AG: Oh, yikes.  
AG: Drama?  
TT: Yeah.  
TT: Your fault?  
AG: Mostly.  
AG: W8.  
AG: Kanaya?  
TT: Yep.  
AG: Entirely..  
TT: Skank.  
AG: You betcha. 

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering arachnidsGrip [AG].

 

* * *

 

You’ve been lingering inside your house for a couple of day now, sluggish on your feet, your mind going to fast for comfort. You’d been thinking about what you told Rose, and how gross it was that you learned that from the girl who actively assisted in fucking up her marriage. You’d given her the advice of her antagonist, and she’d thanked you for it. She had thanked you, sincerely, and you’d let her.

John’s buzzed you a couple of times, but you’re so lazy. You can’t respond. The more you think about asking John back out, the more it disgusts you. You’re using him. You’re using him like Vriska used Kanaya. You’re using him like your brother used him. You’re _using_ him and he doesn’t deserve that, to be your second choice, because you’re a stupid, stupid idiot for even thinking it’d be rational in any sense to go out with this boy.

You remind yourself that he’s not Jake, he’s not going to leave, you don’t want Jake you want John but you’re lying and John is still messaging you and so is Jane, she hasn’t let up, and so is Roxy and Hal and Karkat and you want them all to leave you alone for once. You want them all to stop pretending to like you.

You close your curtains and resist the urge to throw your phone at the wall. You play with one of your semi-ironic anime catgirl pin-up vinyls and you try to forget that people are trying to fuck with you. God, they’re trying to fuck with you so hard. What’s their _issue?_

You stare at your computer screen, the boards you’re reading through on some shoddy re-purposing of Reddit and you wonder if you should ask something there, why everyone wants to mess with you, but you swear someone will find your whining and they’ll all hate you even more.

You need to leave John alone before you become the guy he’s drinking over, before you become the pawn in someone else’s game like he’s the pawn in yours.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s early June. Jane is having a pool party.

You’re in your apartment, drinking yourself into a stupor, and watching reruns of Cowboy Bebop.

You’re hardly watching, though, because it’s all the way mute and you’re trying to work out way to drink your rum and Coke while laying down without spilling it all over yourself. It isn’t really working, you’re afraid, and you eventually cave in and sit up to finish the glass. You’d make another, but that would mean you’d have to get up and walk all the way back to the kitchen…

You’ll get more in a second. Your phone chimes, and you pick it up.

EB: hey, dirk!  
EB: did you get invited to jane’s party?  
EB: i did, but i don’t know if i should go…  
EB: can i come over? 

You remind yourself he’s not yours, he’ll never be yours, and you decline all his messages. Putting your Pesterchum on private did wonders to shut them all up.

 

[tipsyGnostalgic wants to send you a message!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11292618/chapters/25264311)

[carcinoGeneticist wants to send you a message! ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11292618/chapters/25265352)

[turntechGodhead wants to send you a message! ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11292618/chapters/25265577)

[tentacleTherapist wants to send you a message! ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11292618/chapters/25265739)

[arachnidsGrip wants to send you a message! ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11292618/chapters/25265877)

 

And then you decline the rest of them, too. God, they’re so bad at keeping quiet. Your head thunks against your wall, since your bed is only a mattress on a boxspring now, and you choose to pester someone else.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering golgothasTerror [GT].

TT: Jake please talk to me right now i need it

\-- Uh oh! This chumhandle is invalid! -- 

You stare at the screen for longer than you would like to because you’ve just lost your only connection to Jake English besides the shows he stars in that are saved to your DVR and the forty-two pictures of him you have in their own separate album on your phone and it’s the worst feeling in the world. You need to talk to him. You need it like nothing you’ve ever needed before, and you probably sound like a desperate psychopath, but you just _do._

You know excruciatingly well Jake English hates you and how you treated him, but he doesn’t understand. You were doing your best, and it’s going to kill you. You need him to know how much you’re falling apart, he has to be sympathetic. Won’t he feel just a little bad for you?

John shoots you a couple more messages that showcase as banners above your invalid chat with Jake before he gives up, and the notifications slow and stop. You know that that is probably for the best. John is sweet, but that’s all he is.

TT: Dirk.  
TT: Please stop torturing yourself.  
TT: Go to the pool party.  
TT: Speak to your friends.  
TT: They don’t hate you. None of them hate you. You’re being irrational. 

SCHEDULE ITEM ADDED: Socialize. Please. 

TT: You know this isn’t healthy. 

You do know. This when you realize that you’ve made mistakes no one is going to forgive you for. You haven’t done anything at all, all of you friends just stopped caring somewhere along the way. Hal didn’t understand things the way you did because he wasn’t real, he couldn’t possibly understand that you’re blameless and everyone hates you for reasons beyond your control. They all just let you fall through the cracks in the floor and none of them cared.

You’ve finally made it to the point of irrelevancy. You’re finally just like John, not worth it. You wonder if they’re going to giggle about you at that pool party of theirs, whispers about how Dirk Strider is gross and crazy and you wonder if Jake will contribute and you could vomit onto your bedsheets.

You abruptly decide not to make another rum and Coke.

 

* * *

 

Someone knocks at your apartment door. It’s just their luck you’re only half-asleep on the couch, but it’s not in their favor when you answer the door shirtless, dirty, not having showered in weeks and your house more of a wreck than ever. Dave stares at you, glasses propped up on his forehead, with a look that borders on disgusted. He stares at you, then over your shoulder, and he squares his shoulders.

“You need to cut your shit,” he tells you.

“What shit?” you mumble, pinching the bridge of your nose because you’re halfway to hammered and your eyes are as red as his.

“This shit!” he exclaims, “You’re a fucking wreck, you’ve gotten John to fall back into his bullshit, you made Roxy almost have a fucking panic attack or some bullshit because you won’t answer the damn phone,” he counts off two fingers, “You haven’t paid your rent in a month, you have Jane _blocked_ so she can’t even offer to help you pay it, and you haven’t spoke to me in actual _years,_ Dirk, so we both know it’s time that you find out what the fuck you damage is, fix it, and then come join the rest of us in Happy Human Land.”

He holds up five fingers, and then clenches his fist and drops it to his side.

“You’re not happy,” you tell him.

“Like shit I’m not happy. I’ve never been happier,” he gives you a hard look, “Who are you to say that?”

You can kind of see right through Dave. It might be a family thing. But it’s been a long, long while since he opened up to you, and an even longer while before he was genuine about it. You just shrug, though, because Dave’s almost darker than you and he still manages to look flustered right now. “I’m your brother.”

“Oh, you’re my brother alright,” he tells you, narrowing his eyes, “I take back whatever I said to you. You’re just like him. You’re selfish, and you’re gross, and you won’t let anyone help your narcissistic ass.”

You stare at him. He looks entirely steamed, like he wants to sock you in the face, so you just glance down at your feet and say, “Seeya, Dave.”

He laughs, mutters something under his breath, and storms away. You shut the door as soon as you can and you lean against it, forehead against the cold fake wood, and you wonder if you should be crying. You don’t really ever do that, and you don’t feel the urge to, you just feel like it may be appropriate. You heave a fake sob, and press harder against the door.

 

* * *

 

 

You’re too scared to go out and get your own groceries. You’re scared to run into a friend or a friend of a friend or a family member or anything who may recognize you. You order your groceries online, and then get set outside your door, and then you use them up until you have to order them again. It’s great at making you a recluse. You hardly find the time to do anything despite never doing anything. You don’t know why you’re still suffering.

Part of you thinks it’d be preferable to kill yourself. But you don’t know if you can die, and if you could die, you’d be too scared to die. It was kind of this never-ending loop of your own fear taking advantage of you. You didn’t know what to do with yourself besides jack off to gross shota-con hentai that barely got you hard anymore and watch Jake English on television, read about Jane in the news, scroll through your old messages with everyone and wonder where the fuck you went wrong.

Eventually, you decide that this is a shitlaod of bullshit. You need to fix things. You need to get your friends back on your side, because they hate you, they all hate you, and so you decide to enlist the help of someone who can at least stand you.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG].

TT: Karkat.   
CG: STRIDER?  
CG: WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT NOW?  
TT: I need a favor.  
TT: It’s about Jake, again.  
CG: OH, GREAT.  
CG: OF COURSE YOU WOULD BE ASKING ABOUT EVENTUALLY, I DON’T KNOW HOW I DIDN’T SEE THIS ONE COMING FROM SEVERAL THOUSAND STALKS AWAY.  
CG: LET’S ALL TAKE A MOMENT TO LOOK INTO THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE EVERY NOW AND AGAIN JUST SO I DON’T GET SURPRISED AGAIN.  
CG: YOU ALREADY BLEW THAT MEET-UP WITH HIM, LIKE, MONTHS AGO. WHAT THE FUCK ELSE CAN I DO FOR YOU?  
TT: I’m serious, dude.  
TT: Just answer me.  
CG: IT’S YOUR FAULT FOR NOT MEETING HIM WHEN YOU SHOULD’VE, DIRK.  
CG: THAT IS SO YOUR FAULT IT IS FUCKING INSANE.  
TT: I know, alright?  
TT: But I was being irrational. I really need to speak to him now.  
TT: I was wondering if you had his new chumhandle.  
TT: It seems I haven’t been aware he’d even make a new account at all, which I find offensive and slightly insulting.  
TT: As if I’m not good enough to speak to the glorious English himself.  
CG: I HAVE IT, YEAH.  
CG: BUT I DUNNO, DIRK.  
CG: I DON’T THINK JAKE WANTS YOU TO HAVE IT. HE’S KIND OF TRYING TO MOVE ON, YOU KNOW?  
CG: AFTER YOU SKIPPED OUT ON HIM, I’M PRETTY SURE HE’S JUST REALLY DONE WITH YOU.  
CG: HE’S BEEN TRYING TO MOVE ON FOR, LIKE I SAID, TWO AND A HALF SWEEPS.  
TT: I know.  
TT: It’s urgent.  
CG: DAMN.  
CG: HAS THE WAR STARTED?  
TT: I’m asking as a friend, Karkat, please. I’ll never try to get anything out of you ever again, I swear.  
CG: FINE.  
CG: JUST PROMISE ME YOU’LL ONLY BE TALKING TO HIM TO TRY AND PATCH THINGS UP. DON’T TRY AND COERCE HIM BACK INTO YOUR QUADRANTS, THAT’LL ONLY CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS.  
CG: BELIEVE ME. I’VE SEEN MURDERS COME OF THAT SHIT AND I WISH I WAS JOKING.  
CG: BE GOOD TO HIM.  
TT: Gog be with you, Karkat. You’re too good to me.  
CG: SOMEONE’S GOTTA BE NICE TO YOU EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, DIRK.  
CG: OR ELSE YOU’LL LOSE YOUR GOGDAMN MIND.  
CG: Check out this chum!  
CG: IF HE ASKS, I DIDN’T TELL YOU, ALRIGHT?  
TT: Tell me what?  
CG: ALRIGHT. 

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased being pestered by timaeusTestified [TT].

You click on the link Karkat sends you and it brings you to Jake’s profile and your heart jumps with joy. Immediately, you screenshot his info and add it to your Jake album so you won’t forget his chumhandle. You know you can’t add him, but when the time is right, you’ll pester him and make things right.

TT: Dirk.  
TT: I strongly advise against this. You’re just going to tear open your wounds that are already healing insanely slow.

SCHEDULE REMINDER: Socialize. Please. 

SCHEDULE ITEM UPDATED: Socialize with anyone but your ex. Please.

TT: Listen, Dirk, I know it must be hard but this is only making it worse.  
TT: It won’t bring him back.  
TT: In your heart of hearts you know that you’re never getting him back. 

You disable Hal’s notifications.


End file.
